Baby’s First Carrots and Random Garden Happenings.

Yesterday all I picked in the garden was a nice pile of carrots. The perfect amount to make Eli his first carrots.

They look yummy don’t they!

Well, I’m not too sure he thought so. This was the, “I don’t know what to think of these,” look. I guess he wasn’t ready for this texture yet, so I ended up pureeing it up with a little Coconut Milk Yogurt and he scarfed it down.

These are the two varieties of cucumbers I am “trying”  to grow. The one on the left is the Lemon and  the other is the American Genuine Slicing. The lemon is much more seedy. And for some reason my daughter LOVES cucumber seeds, so the Lemon one is perfect for her! They are a pretty mild cucumber. But I think I like the AG better.

 

Here are their pitiful vines! They are doing terrible this year. Especially the American Genuine. The vines are practically dead on the trellis. I think the heat and the bugs have taken their toll on them. I really am not getting any more American genuines. There are a few small deformed ones on the vine, but I am not holding out much hope for them this season.

I did however get some kind of cross or hybrid or something from the Lemon Cucumber vine! It is fat and longer and has a little bit of green running through it.

There are so many lady bugs in my garden this year.  I have never had so many in my garden. I am not really sure what is attracting them but I am glad they are there. And yes, the powdery mildew has found my garden yet again!

 

These are the last of the pumpkin vines on their last leg! I sure hope that the last of the pumpkins will ripen before these go completely dead. Those squash bugs just have too many hiding places. I think I need to come up with a better plan for pumpkins next year. I don’t want to leave so many hiding places for stinkin squash bugs!

I must have done something right with the peppers this year. I have the most peppers I have ever had. This Serrano plant is just loaded and this is just the top of the plant! The habanero right next to it is loaded as well. But what I am really happy with is that I actually have a decent number of Bell peppers growing.

   

Although the Purple Beauty Bells out in my corner garden have BER! Grrr. What a bummer.

And yesterday I canned up some tomato sauce using my tomatoes that were piled on the counter and some of my fresh oregano and basil and a little grocery store garlic. It smelled really good and looks really good too. I will definitely do this again.

The tomatoes are kinda slow going this year though. May be the heat. Like a lot of you, we have had one of the hottest summers on record. Could be that they are all planted too closely and that darn Juliet has taken over the whole bed! Ahh, you learn new things every year in the garden huh?

Along with the Lady Bugs and the Parasitoid wasps on the Tomato worm, I have also found a couple of little frogs in the garden. Though I don’t think they are of much help right now since they are still about the size of the squash bugs I hope they eat! I found one just perched on a pepper leaf the other day up high in the plant. It was kinda cute. My garden seems to be finally attracting more than just bad bugs this year which is a very welcome thing to see!  Who knows if the people that live here before just poured out the chemicals or what but about the only thing I could find in this yard was an ample supply of ants and wasps among the garden eating bad guys. I’m not saying the ants and wasps are bad, but sometimes enough is enough! So it is nice for my beneficial population to be growing. So far this year I have not  used anything except BT in the garden! I am very happy to have gotten the plentiful harvests that I have been getting with no use of chemical pesticides! Though when the pumpkins are picked, it is very tempting to just TORCH the whole pumpkin patch area! Burn squash bugs! BURN!

Happy Gardening!